When I finished writing my novel, Annabel, in 2010, I nearly lost the use of my legs. Between books I make things by hand: hats, collages, kegs of kimchi. So I went to the friperie looking for magpie materials—and found I couldn’t walk up the stairs. “They feel,” I told my doctor, “like planks of […]
When I was halfway through writing my first book many years ago, I remember reading in Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life that the best part of being a writer isn’t getting your name in print. It isn’t all the excitement and accolades that accompany being a published author. The best […]
Like bread dough, my writing seems to require time to rise in a warm, draft-free place. The long proofing period is necessary; turn up the heat to hurry the rising, or don’t leave it long enough, and I get a stodgy, dense loaf. Under ideal conditions—solitude, free time and excitement about what I’m writing—the words […]
In any life, there are events that shake us to the core. Some occur when we are very young, and they remain the reach of memory. Others persist in detail so heightened that it verges on the surreal, as if painted onto our retinas by a Salvador Dalí employing a tiny brush. When I was […]
I have this memory that I can’t shake. It is from a time of rebellion. I was in university, a baby feminist, aspiring playwright and general know-it-all. I was listening to Tori Amos’s latest album, Scarlet’s Walk, written post-partum. It stank, I declared to my roommate. Tori had lost her edge. She was writing about […]
This year, Natalee will teach Sharanpal Ruprai’s “Seva” and Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer’s “All The Broken Things.” I have my dream job. I write, review and teach Canadian literature and creative writing. When I think about why I am so happy teaching new CanLit I recall when, a few years back, my friend, writer Andrew […]
Seeing the images on my television screen, I froze in shock and anguish. People running for cover behind piles of rubber tires, a man being struck down by sniper fire. This was Maidan—Independence Square in the centre of Kiev, a place where I had talked to the book vendors, met friends, watched a busker do […]
“— but there’s one great advantage in it, that one’s memory works both ways.” — the White Queen, Through the Looking-Glass I’m a writer of literary non-fiction and my first book is a memoir. Seems likely that memory would be important to my work. It is. But it’s of equal value to writers of all […]
Get ready for it – the next big thing in the digital revolution is nearly upon us. It’s called social reading and it will change the way books are produced and consumed. So says digital publishing guru Bob Stein, someone with the cred to know what he’s talking about. Stein played a role in creating […]
For as long as I can remember I’ve been telling musicians, “I’m a fiction writer.” And for just as many years I’ve been telling other writers, “I’m a music critic.” As a writer, it’s not unusual to cultivate a handful of different identities but it feels strange when these identities begin to reorganize themselves. I […]
